Civilians, policemen killed in Iraq

An entire family of five, including a baby, has been killed in shelling at Hilla, south of Baghdad.

16 Jul 2004 12:40 GMT

Iraqi civilian caught in a crossfire west of Baghdad

Our correspondent reported that the family was caught in firing apparently aimed at two oil pipelines running close to their house.

In the Abu Ghraib district, west of Baghdad, an Iraqi child was killed and seven people wounded in an exchange of fire between US forces and the resistance.

In another incident, an Iraqi policeman was killed and another wounded when two rocket-propelled grenades hit a police patrol in Jihad quarter in Baghdad.

According to the Iraqi police, the attack was followed by shooting from the cover of houses nearby.

Fierce clashes

In Falluja west of Baghdad, nine Iraqis including a woman and a child were on Thursday night wounded when fierce clashes erupted between US forces and the resistance at the eastern entrance to the town, our correspondent reported.

Iraqi police have come underfrequent attack in Kirkuk

A policeman was shot dead on Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk, where the bullet-riddled body of a Kurdish peshmerga fighter was discovered, Iraqi police said.

The shooting took place in an area of the city where tensions are high between Arabs, Kurds and Turks, and where police units have come under frequent attack.

Captain Sarhad Qadir also said police found the body of a peshmerga of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the south of Kirkuk with several bullet wounds in the head and abdomen.

Explosion

In Baghdad, an explosion near a US army convoy rocked a central part of the city on Friday but it was not immediately clear if it caused any casualties, a US military spokesman said.

Al-Zarqawi's group claimsMosul governor's killing

"It was in central Baghdad at about 1:05 pm (0905 GMT). There was an explosion. It was near a US convoy," the spokesman told.

Meanwhile, a group led by suspected al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the killing of the governor of the Iraqi city of Mosul in an ambush earlier this week, according to a Web site.

"Thanks to God, your brothers in the military wing of Tawhid and Jihad Group were able to get the head of the apostate traitor, the governor of Mosul, in an ambush," said a statement dated 14 July and posted on the site.

The governor, Osama Kashmoula, and two of his bodyguards were killed on Wednesday while driving in a convoy of vehicles towards Baghdad.